GAME only selling Wii with 3 bundled games

quarryman

Was passing by so i dropped in. Asked if they had Wiis in stock. Wasn't really buying just curious.

She said they might have a couple, checked, said yep but only selling it with 3 games bundled, total price €400 or something.

Told her where to stick it.

Are they not supposed to allow you to buy the console by itself.

btw, it was GAME in Limerick

johnny_ultimate

They don't have any right to force bundles upon you, certainly when you've pre-ordered a Wii and a Wii only.
But since they're in such short supply, I'd say it's good business sense to only sell bundled ones. I'm not sure what the law is there, but if you haven't pre-ordered I don't think you have any right to demand a Wii solus. Which is s****y.

Kurtosis

Yeah, nothing wrong with it only being available as part of a bundle.

If you had pre-ordered a Wii, then they'd have no right to demand you buy a bundle with it, they'd be obliged to just sell you the console on its own. However, since it's not a case of pre-ordering, they can do what they want, and ,as johnny said, it's good business sense to sell only in bundles.

parsi

In Gamstop today they said it was a bundle. But I got it on its own happily.

quarryman

hmm, maybe a i should go back and tell her she doesn't have to stick it that place so. By law i mean.

Yeah, I've always found Gamestop to be a lot better to deal with compared to Game. Gonna wait til the new year before maybe buying the Wii anyway.

Kurtosis

Yeah, that's the thing, even if they say there's only a bundle, you can try and argue against it.

Though there is always the danger that you'll still won't be given the option to buy it on its own and then your pride will be dented too much to go back and accept to buy the bundle

slade_x

quarryman wrote:

Was passing by so i dropped in. Asked if they had Wiis in stock. Wasn't really buying just curious.

She said they might have a couple, checked, said yep but only selling it with 3 games bundled, total price €400 or something.

Told her where to stick it.

Are they not supposed to allow you to buy the console by itself.

btw, it was GAME in Limerick

More like €450

Console €270, 3 games €180, getting ripped off before christmas, Depressing

chrislad

quarryman wrote:

Was passing by so i dropped in. Asked if they had Wiis in stock. Wasn't really buying just curious.

She said they might have a couple, checked, said yep but only selling it with 3 games bundled, total price €400 or something.

Told her where to stick it.

Are they not supposed to allow you to buy the console by itself.

btw, it was GAME in Limerick

Cop yourself on. I personally know all the people in GAME in Limerick and those bundles are forced on them by head office. It's not a choice they make.

There's no law about what they can sell, other than obviously forcing people who paid in advance for the console by itself. They own it. They can sell it for whatever, to whomever and with whatever they want. As it is, I'd go for the bundle as chances are you'll be getting Zelda and Wii Play (for the extra remote) anyway. Keep the other game sealed and return it after Christmas saying it was an unwanted present. As long as it's sealed, they should exchange without a receipt.

Kimbot

Even without a preorder they can't demand that you buy it as part of a bundle!! Probably just some way of getting commission on it before crimbo!!

Hobbes

What three games? It comes free with Wii Sports, I suspect that is one of the three.

Wii Play the second one as that looks kack.

GrumPy

GAME in henry street yesterday were forcing bundles with five games.

They also had ds lites in stock, also with some kind of bundle.

Kimbot

AFAIK its 100% illegal to "Force" anything on the customer!!! BY law if they have a product that can be sold as an individual item they have to give it to you like that!!

skywalker

How are they forcing anything on anyone? They are offering a product for sale, and they can choose to offer that product any way they like. They can bundle every wii with a 3 bed semi in Foxrock if they so choose (probably wouldn't net them as much revenue though). Its not a nice practise but there's absolutely nothing illegal about it.

Kimbot

skywalker wrote:

How are they forcing anything on anyone? They are offering a product for sale, and they can choose to offer that product any way they like. They can bundle every wii with a 3 bed semi in Foxrock if they so choose (probably wouldn't net them as much revenue though). Its not a nice practise but there's absolutely nothing illegal about it.

AFAIK It is Illegal if they are forcing it on you!!!
Customer has to have choice, if the item is for sale as an individual unit aswell as a budle they can't stop you from buying something you want!

quarryman

chrislad wrote:

Cop yourself on. I personally know all the people in GAME in Limerick and those bundles are forced on them by head office. It's not a choice they make.

There's no law about what they can sell, other than obviously forcing people who paid in advance for the console by itself. They own it. They can sell it for whatever, to whomever and with whatever they want. As it is, I'd go for the bundle as chances are you'll be getting Zelda and Wii Play (for the extra remote) anyway. Keep the other game sealed and return it after Christmas saying it was an unwanted present. As long as it's sealed, they should exchange without a receipt.

Relax, I didn't say anything unpleasant. I just asked her was it definately not possible to buy the console on its own and she said no. I've worked that side of the counter too and know how it works with orders from above.

Great idea about bringing the game back. I'm assuming they will only exchange it for another or credit?

They can bundle every wii with a 3 bed semi in Foxrock

Where can i get on of these Wiis?

AFAIK It is Illegal if they are forcing it on you!!!

Can you back that up with a reference?

flogen

jonny24ie wrote:

AFAIK It is Illegal if they are forcing it on you!!!
Customer has to have choice, if the item is for sale as an individual unit aswell as a budle they can't stop you from buying something you want!

Exactly; at times like this Game don't sell it as an individual unit, they sell it as a bundle, and nothing else.
So you have every right to buy one on its own, but you're not going to find it in Game at that particular time, and they know you're not going to find it anywhere else (which is why they do it).

Oh, and Game don't have commissions as far as I know; this is all coming from above, I can promise you (from the people who don't have to listen to customers rightly complain about being taken advantage of).

Had planned to get one in the new year, but decided to negotiate with Santy on a deal in time for Christmas; of course they're quite hard to find, as I knew all along.
I had planned on getting into town but something came up which slowed me down. Long and short of it is I missed out on the few that were available this morning. Dang. That said, I couldn't have afforded a 3-5 game bundle no matter what, so I'll wait, a little disheartened but not all that distraught.
December 27th is the next delivery date, apparently.

corblimey

chrislad wrote:

Keep the other game sealed and return it after Christmas
saying it was an unwanted present. As long as it's sealed, they should exchange without a receipt.

Be wary of this. I tried that before with a PS2 bundle I had. I had no interest in 1 of the games, so I never opened it, brought it back, etc. They wouldn't accept it without a receipt and because the receipt said bundle, even though it was still sealed, I was offered only trade-in value on it. I was gutted.

skywalker

jonny24ie wrote:

AFAIK It is Illegal if they are forcing it on you!!!
Customer has to have choice, if the item is for sale as an individual unit aswell as a budle they can't stop you from buying something you want!

There was a dicussion on Matt Coopers radio show this time last year about the practise in relation to the 360's launch. There was a MS rep on the show saying they didnt endorse the practise but it was up to the retailer to choose how to sell their products. Unless you can find a piece of legislation or something that says otherwise, Im pretty certain your wrong on that.

*Tripper*

Well i just got a Wii in dawson street and was expecting to have to buy a game but nope they were real sound about it and were like "of course you can have the console on its own"

parsi

jonny24ie wrote:

AFAIK its 100% illegal to "Force" anything on the customer!!! BY law if they have a product that can be sold as an individual item they have to give it to you like that!!

In fairness that's a load of twaddle ! They aren't forcing anybody to do anything. Don't want a bundle ? Then don't buy a bundle and go to a shop that will sell them unbundled.

Be interested to see a citation for that "law" you mention.

mel123

*Tripper* wrote:

Well i just got a Wii in dawson street and was expecting to have to buy a game but nope they were real sound about it and were like "of course you can have the console on its own"

What shop in Dawson Street??

*Tripper*

GAME there long gone now though

GrumPy

How many people would want to just buy the console on it's own though?

I moaned, and worried about if a bundle was gonna be forced on me or not.

In the end, I could buy the console on it's own, but went for the bundle cause I got a few squid off zelda, and €10 vouchers.

chrislad

It not illegal. Shops, believe it or not, do not have to sell you anything. They purchase good wholesale, and sell them how they want to sell them. It is not your god given right to buy whatever you want how you want it. It's your god given right to buy whatever you want how the shop wants to sell it.

slade_x

chrislad wrote:

It not illegal. Shops, believe it or not, do not have to sell you anything. They purchase good wholesale, and sell them how they want to sell them. It is not your god given right to buy whatever you want how you want it. It's your god given right to buy whatever you want how the shop wants to sell it.

How a shop sells on its products, are determined buy the terms of sale

The easiest example is multipaks. one of the most recent exploits i know of was the ballygowan/tipperary water watermulti pack that was taken apart and sold seperately by a few select stores

In a game store for example it would be against policy to sell a tied bundle seperately, eg. selling a wii console and wii sports seperately.

There should however be a line, for example a bundle being subject to limited stock. if Game got a certain amount of units, management could then decide to split the stock between the original bundle and a tied arrangement with a certain amount of other games.

It is clearly not fair to only sell large bundles. take for example all the xbox bundles. xtra vision currently have 4 games and a console but you can also choose to purchase 1 console and 1 game. you are not forced into a tying arrangement what so ever

officially no manufacturer condones such aggressive bundling. its all on the retailers

Retailers' greed


If Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo speak the truth, then the blame in all of this falls squarely on the shoulders of the retailer. It may be legal, but is it ethical? Well, the business world is not exactly a shining example of what's ethical or not; the retailer, like any company, cares about the bottom line, not you. And as it turns out, selling the hardware as is may not be profitable for the retailer either, according to Hal Halpin, former head of the Interactive Entertainment Merchants Association, who recently founded the Entertainment Consumer Association to fight for gamers' rights.



"As I understand bundling, the primary reason for it is because there's no margin to be had on the hardware. So, retailers oftentimes by the time they stock a product and get it from the distribution centers to their stores and onto the store shelves are actually losing money on the hardware itself, not altogether different from the hardware manufacturers," Halpin explained.
He continued, "The demand is so unbelievably high with every new console introduction and the supply is so phenomenally low each time that they need to make money when they're selling the consoles, and so they bundle them with things that they hope consumers will also want and need anyway. They try to make them competitive; it's not like they're intentionally throwing bad games in there to get rid of them. They usually try to bundle pretty good packages and then they can make margin on the sale."



Halpin also agreed that the console makers likely have little say in bundling practices. It would seem to be entirely a retail initiative. "To the best of my knowledge, the publishers really have very little involvement," he said. "They're fully aware because it's part of the sale process, so they're definitely vested, but I don't think there's a lot of work that goes between them on what the bundles will be or how it will be bundled. It could be that times have changed and maybe that situation has, but to the best of my knowledge it's strictly retailer centric."

If your interested here's an interesting article entitled Predatory Packaging

robnubis

Its not a nintendo package, basically they obviously have a number of wii's allocated to be sold as part of a bundle, this is usually set down by franchise operators.

I dont see much problem with it tbh, there are ppl who want bundle as you can save money, and if you want you're wii individually you'll just have to wait till they have non-dundle packs available, no one would ever be forced to take a bundle for a pre-order, and you can just demand they give you a console from one of their bundle offers just because you pre-oreder

BrookieD

Well i got my Wii from GMAE and was not even offerd a bundle. I bought an extra controller and monkey ball. no problems or hassles?

gokgok

i got one in game just there without a bundle. no extra controllers

Irish Halo

I posted this already:

Bundling like this is a far as I know called "tying" in law jargon and is illegal:

From http://www.citizensinformation.ie/categories/consumer-affairs/consumer-protection/pricing/pricing_of_goods_and_services:
Quote:

Competition in the marketplace
Competition law in Ireland exists to protect and benefit consumers. Anti-competitive practices are business practices which prevent or reduce competition in a market. Anti-competitive behaviour by businesses may result in consumers paying higher prices. The Competition Authority exists to ensure that anti competitive behaviour does not occur. If you find that all suppliers are charging the same price for an item or service this may constitute anti competitive behaviour and should be reported to the Competition Authority. Read more about making a complaint to the Competition Authority.

Anti-competitive practices include:

* Price fixing, where companies collude to set prices. That is businesses selling the same item or service agree what prices should be charged for a particular product or service.

* Tying, where different products are linked together to prevent consumer choice.

* Resale price maintenance, where resellers are not allowed to set prices independently.

It is usually difficult for a business to use anti-competitive practices unless the parties involved have significant market power.

I can't find the actual piece of legislation i.e. The X of Y act 19Somethingorother but I believe you may tell the manager(don't take it out on the Till Jockey, I've been one they don't have any choice/say in these things) to sell you the console bundle free and mention out that any extras you may have bought will be purchased in a rival's store. This is where it will hurt as the profit margin on the consoles is usually razor thin.

ondafly

bought 2 wii(s) today, neither times was I forced to purchase a bundle.

Star Lord

I hope there are ones available today so I can pick up one for my folks... they want to get one for my siblings for christmas after playing mine last weekend.

Silverfish

Where on earth are you finding these? I was told no more til February by Game in Dublin today, no bundles or anything.

Corholio

GAME in Patrick St, Cork today had a few Wii's for sale. I rang at 1.30 and they said they had a couple but unless i was there within 10-15 minutes i'd probably miss out, from where i am i couldnt of got there in that time.

cyberspi

I got one of the last 5 in Game Limerick today around 3:30 - bundled with 2 extra games of your choice for 389

Scubadevils

Got mine today in Dawson St and didnt have to buy with games. Have to convince the Mrs now that I can open it before Christmas day